The Spark and the Fury
by ilarual
Summary: Snapshots of an unorthodox romance. Medieval fantasy AU drabbles for JacKim Week 2014.
1. Magic

**A/N-** And here we have my entries for JacKim Week 2k14. This year all my responses to the prompts are interconnected to weave a larger story for the whole. Consider these drabbles sort of like... selected chapters, I guess, of the first book in a fantasy trilogy. Whether the other two books will ever be written is up to my muse.

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><p>The palace on the hill in Shitoshi, home to generations of royals since the birth of the kingdom, was not a handsome building. It had been built to be a touchstone, the beating heart of the kingdom of Shi around which the capitol had grown over the centuries. Grandeur and beauty were reserved for the airy summer palace by the sea far to the south; the business of the royal family while in the capitol was that of governance, not leisure.<p>

In a small antechamber, a girl sat ramrod straight on an unpadded bench, her eyes fixed blankly on the tapestry adorning the wall opposite her. The girl was about twenty years old, and quite a curious thing to look at. Her angular features and the traditional styling of her dark hair seemed to mark her as a woman of the Niwan people from the north, but she was dressed as a Shian native. She was sitting perfectly still except for her left hand, which was clenching and unclenching spasmodically on the bench beside her.

The people of the merchant district called her the Lantern Girl, and not only because she had found employment refilling the gas lamps in the district as soon as she was tall enough to work. Her given name, though few bothered to use it, was Jacqueline, and she had been born with an affinity for fire.

It had started small. A shower of sparks when she stamped her foot during a temper tantrum as a child. Candles that seemed to light themselves spontaneously. Wet firewood that proved willing to burn regardless.

Mostly people didn't seem to notice, or if they did they didn't care. Perhaps it would have been different in a small village, but Shitoshi was different. Magic was around every street corner in the capitol, and there were certainly some very unusual affinities out there. A young woman whose only real gift seemed to be keeping the lamps lit was not worth much notice.

At least, she hadn't been until this evening, when the butcher's boy who'd been bothering her for weeks had finally stopped taking no for an answer and made a grab for her. In that instant a fireball had burst suddenly between them, searing the skin on his hands and forearms and singeing her skirt. The snivelling creep had gone running straight to the city watch, who had dragged her off toward the prison down by the riverside, but before she could be incarcerated, a woman with a face much too youthful for her silver hair had arrived bearing the command to escort Jacqueline to the palace instead. The woman- who gave her name as Eruka- had deposited her in this room with strict instructions not to leave, and she'd been here ever since.

She was sure it was after midnight by now. Half the lamps in her district must still be unlit, with her hauled off in royal custody, but there was naught she could do about it at present. Jacqueline could only sit, and wait.

After what felt like another hour, though, Eruka returned. Accompanying her was a pair of very tall men. The first was pale and appeared rather underfed, which Jacqueline desperately hoped explained the hungry gaze he wore as his bespectacled eyes ran over her intently, making her shiver. The second, in contrast, was tanned and heavily muscled. She suspected that his vision was no better than his companion's, however, as he wore an eyepatch over his left eye.

"You're still here, then," the man with the glasses observed sardonically.

Jacqueline nodded, her throat too dry to speak.

"Free and I were taking bets, you see," he continued. "I had hoped to find that the first reported fire mage in over a century would prove a little more… rebellious."

"Eh?" She was utterly baffled.

He grinned, revealing a rather unsettling number of teeth. "Miss Dupre, you have been sitting in this room for upwards of three hours. The door was unlocked, and you are not restrained. You could have left at any time, yet you did not."

"I thought—"

"No, no," he said with a wave of his hand, "don't get worked up about it now. The king, at least, will be delighted that his new fire mage is so pliable and eager to follow directions without question." His gaze was satirical as he peered at her over his spectacles, still with that faintly manic grin on his mouth. "It will make you a tremendous asset to the crown, I'm sure. If, in fact, Eruka's report is accurate and you do indeed have an affinity for fire, of course."

Jacqueline wilted a little, unable to meet his eyes.

To her immense relief, Eruka chose that moment to speak up. Clearly over-compensating for the tense atmosphere with forced cheerfulness, she said, "Jacqueline, this is Stein. He's the resident warlock here in the palace."

"_Professor_, Eruka, I am a _professor_," Stein interrupted. "The term warlock is rather pejorative, you know."

Eruka looked as though she was exerting a great deal of effort not to roll her eyes. "Right. Of course. Must've slipped my mind, silly me. Anyway, _Professor_ Stein here is an expert on magical history and multiple types of magecraft. He'll be evaluating your power and control as a fire mage and overseeing your training to make sure you're fit to—"

"I'm sorry, _what?_" Jacqueline interrupted.

"Oh, of course. I asked Eruka not to explain everything to you earlier," Stein said. "The king is very eager to recruit talented mages to his service. The unrest in the north is making him uneasy, and it's best to rally his strength now, and all that military ho-hum." He waved his hand, as if rumors of riots and skirmishes in the northern cities was a subject beneath his notice. "You'll be fully briefed on the details once Free and I decide you are adequately prepared to enter the king's service."

Jacqueline was fairly diffident by nature, but there were limits to what she would accept without question. "You talk as if I have no choice," she ventured.

"That would be because you haven't," said Eruka, tucking her hands behind her back and bouncing frenetically on the balls of her feet. "It'd be different if you had some other affinity, but a fire mage…" She trailed off with a helpless little shrug.

Jacqueline's heart was pounding hard and she couldn't think of a way out of this situation. "But I'm not a fire mage," she protested feebly. "I'm barely a… a candle-witch, at the most. I can keep a fire burning better than normal people, that's it."

The other man, who had thus far been silent, spoke at last in a warm baritone. "To hear the bystanders talk, you created a fireball that damn near killed a man and set half the merchant district ablaze. Whatever magic you may normally use, clearly you're capable of much more under pressure."

She had surprised herself today, that much was true. She'd been trying not to think about it, allowing her eyes to skim over the singed hem of her skirt and ignore the faint smell of smoke that was still lingering about her. It was something she would deal with later, once she had time to sit down and think it through properly… except here was this man— she thought Stein had called him Free?— was bringing it forcibly to her attention.

"That… may be true," she conceded reluctantly.

"Excellent, then!" Stein said, clapping his hands together sharply and beaming as though that decided the matter. "I've read every account in existence about the power wielded by fire mages, but being able to observe one in person will be the opportunity of a lifetime. I'm looking forward to studying y— er, _working_ with you," he amended hastily at a sharp look from both Free and Eruka.

"So this is it?" Jacqueline asked, glaring at the trio. "I'm just… impressed into service to the crown, just like that?"

Free shrugged. "Why not? We all were."

"Really?"

Eruka nodded. "One way or another, we were all… let's say 'encouraged' to work for the king. And it's not such a bad life, really. You'll still get to see your family, if you've got any, and the pay's excellent if you're good."

Well, that didn't sound so bad. And no matter how nervous Professor Stein made her, it ought to be more interesting than lamp-lighting, right?

"Okay," she said. "So what happens now?"

"Well, for tonight you'll be escorted home to gather your things and say any necessary goodbyes," Free said. "Then tomorrow you'll report to the mage's barracks below the Keep at noon to begin your preliminary evaluation. Test the upper limits of your power and the like, you know. You'll be assigned a cubby in the barracks where you'll live for the duration of your training."

Jacqueline nodded numbly, wondering how on earth she was supposed to explain this to her aunt (who, come to think of it, was surely frantic with worry by now).

"Who are we assigning as her bunk-mate?" Eruka asked.

Stein snapped his fingers. A scroll appeared in the air before him and dropped into his casually extended hand. He unrolled the parchment and examined its contents. A sadistic smirk twisted across his face. "Diehl."

The pitying looks both Free and Eruka sent her way at this pronouncement did nothing to settle Jacqueline's apprehension.


	2. Healing

**A/N-** I don't have much to say about this. It's dumb, but I'm quite pleased with it for some reason.

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><p>Jacqueline tried for the umpteenth time to adjust her body to lie in a way that wouldn't cause excruciating pain to shoot through her limbs. She hadn't known it was possible to be this sore, but Free had proved her wrong very enthusiastically. After less than a month in the mages' barracks, she was pretty sure there wasn't a single part of her that wasn't bruised beyond all recognition. Quite aside from Professor Stein pushing her harder than she'd ever worked in her life to master her affinity, Free was determined that none of the mages under his command should be helpless if they were in a situation where spellwork wouldn't help them. Therefore, in addition to hours upon hours of magical sparring, she was also being trained in physical combat as well, and it was exhausting.<p>

She tried again to get comfortable, and an involuntary groan escaped past her clenched teeth.

"If you don't stop squirming around down there and shut the hell up I swear to all the gods I will come down there and hit you so hard you won't move for a month!"

Ah yes. As if being constantly battered during her training wasn't bad enough, once she was permitted to retire she was stuck with the most obnoxious bunk-mate of all time.

Kimiearl Diehl was from the south judging by her accent, probably from the city of Majoria, with eyes as brilliant blue as sapphires and just as cold, and her waist-length hair was the most garish shade of pink. She was profoundly unhappy to have someone occupying the bed below her again, having been the sole occupant of their cubby for several months now, and made very sure Jacqueline knew it. She was uncommunicative and grumpy and greedy and all-around terrible and it was made all the more irritating by the fact that she was rather stunningly beautiful.

It wouldn't have been quite so bad, she supposed, except that the space they shared was tiny. The barracks weren't actually a building, but an elaborate series of caves carved out of the limestone cliffs below the Keep. The idea was since a mage's power ostensibly came from the earth itself, living underground as close as possible to the heart of the world would improve their connection to their magics during their training. Each cubby was hewn from the solid rock, with two bunks carved into the wall, one on top of each other. It wasn't a large space. The whole room could not be larger than eight feet wide and ten feet deep, but it was comfortable despite that. Jacqueline guessed that some gifted stone mage must have hollowed out these caverns in the distant past, and if she had been sharing with someone— anyone— else, she would have even called it cozy.

Unfortunately, she had Kimiearl and her attitude instead.

"Oh shush up," Jacqueline grumbled. "I've had an awful day as it is."

"Aw, is the widdle Jackie tired," Kimiearl crooned in the most patronizing manner possible.

"Stop calling me Jackie, Kim," she snapped. "For your information, I'm pretty sure I've got broken ribs thanks to Captain Free's complete inability to pull punches. I'm allowed to be a little uncomfortable."

"Well maybe if you spent less time whining about your stupid aunt and more time paying attention to the here and now, you wouldn't get beat on so much," Kimiearl shot back, a slight edge creeping in beneath that eternally disinterested tone of hers. "I swear, if I have to hear one more time about how it's so hard to be away from home… please, you're an adult!"

Jacqueline actually hissed in frustration. "Gods help me, you're heartless! What kind of parents raised you?"

"They didn't. I don't have any parents, nor an aunt, neither!" Kimiearl said. "They died, okay?"

It was the break in her voice, more than anything else, that stunned Jacqueline into silence. In the three weeks she had known Kimiearl, the only emotions she had deigned to display were belligerent indifference interspersed with periods of smug condescension and mild annoyance. It was infuriating in the extreme, and had provoked a strong compulsion in the usually serene fire mage to shake her bunk mate just to provoke any reaction stronger than irritated boredom.

The audible quiver in her tone was such a stark contrast to her usual apathetic drawl that Jacqueline actually sat up straight in astonishment, ignoring her protesting ribs.

"I-I'm sorry," she sputtered. "I didn't know."

"Whatever," Kimiearl said gruffly. "It is what it is."

"But…" she began slowly, parsing out the implications of her bunk mate's outburst. "You really don't have anyone?"

Kimiearl shifted restively above her. "I'm used to it," was her all too telling reply.

Silence reigned in the dim cubby for some minutes, as compassion welled up in her heart for this strange magelet who, she suddenly recognized, was not so much bitter as she was lonely. To have grown up alone, without a family… well, even Jacqueline had always had her aunt. To simply not have anyone at all was a starkly terrifying idea. She'd probably be rude too, if she didn't have anybody to rely on and turn to when she was upset.

Jacqueline came to a decision then. The way she saw it, she could continue to rise to the other girl's bait and ensure that their entire cohabitation was a miserable experience for them both… or she could try to change the situation. Until now, she'd been too busy feeling sorry for herself for having landed in this situation to see it, but she could fix this, she was sure. She'd always been good at getting along with people, after all.

"You don't… have to be, you know," she whispered into the silence, unsure if Kimiearl was even still awake.

"Don't have to be what?" The reply was snappish, but the other girl's voice had a telltale thickness to it that belied her attempt to sound caustic.

"Used to it," Jacqueline pressed on determinedly. "I mean… I'm always around."

Kimiearl snorted. "Yeah, for how long?"

Insight struck her like a bolt of lightning. "I get it," she said softly. "You do it on purpose, don't you? Act all mean and standoffish, so people won't get attached… or maybe so you won't get attached?"

"What's the point?" Kimiearl said, sounding dreadfully old all of a sudden. "We're born alone and we die alone."

"That doesn't mean we have to be lonely in between. Look, Kimiearl, I know we've gotten off to a rough start, but can we start over and try to be friends? I know I'm boring, and not a very good mage, but I promise I'll be your friend as long as you still want me to be."

For several nerve-wracking seconds, there was silence again. Then, abruptly, Kim's face popped over the edge of the bunk, her curtain of rosy hair nearly sweeping the floor as she leaned over. "Hey," she said, and her voice was a little too determinedly bright to be believable in conjunction with her bloodshot eyes and badly-concealed tear tracks on her face. Still, she looked pleased. "Did I ever tell you what my affinity is?"

Bewildered, but optimistic that her overture of friendship had been accepted, Jacqueline shook her head.

The other mage's lips twitched upward, and she swung herself gracefully down from the upper bunk to land tidily on Jacqueline's mattress. "I'm a healer," she said, and for once her smug little smirk didn't inspire an urge to smack her.

Jacqueline gaped. "But healing magic is so rare!"

"Not as rare as fire magic," the other girl said, nodding significantly in her direction. "Now let's look at those ribs."

When Jacqueline hesitated, astonished, she waved a hand impatiently in the direction of her torso and ordered, "Go on, lift up your shirt."

Jacqueline did so with trembling hands.

The other girl's nose wrinkled adorably as she took in the splotchy bruising across Jacqueline's torso. "Not cracked," she pronounced, "but at least two of your ribs are bruised to hell, probably three."

"You can tell that just by looking?"

Kimiearl winked. "Healer, remember? It's magic."

And with this pronouncement, she brushed her fingers over the damaged area. A brilliant white-gold glow shimmered around the pink haired girl's hand, a light so pure, Jacqueline couldn't help but feel her own flames seemed garish and dim in comparison. Her breath caught in her throat. The pain in her side eased dramatically, and she would have closed her eyes in sheer relief if her gaze hadn't been riveted on the sight of Kimiearl's striking eyes, illuminated by the shine of her magecraft. No longer did they seem cold and hard like stones. There was life and fire and passion buried down inside her after all.

The glow faded but the magic did not. Jacqueline was still spellbound as the healer removed her warm hand.

"Kimiearl…" she breathed.

The other girl shook her head. "Call me Kim," she said, sticking her hand out for Jaqueline to shake, in the odd style of Majorians.

A small smile crept onto the fire mage's lips as she took the offered hand. "In that case, call me Jackie."


	3. Trust

**A/N-** So the Niwan tribes are intended to be pretty akin to Native American/First Nations people, culturally speaking, particularly Cree, which is sort of me projecting my headcanon that Jackie is at least half Native American onto an AU because I just can't help myself... but I digress. Anyway, their relationship to the ethnic majority in Shi is rather similar to that between the Scottish highlanders and the English in the 18th century. Complicated as hell, to say the least, and obviously there's a race issue coming into it as well, but no mass genocide or aggressive eradication of language/culture at this point.

Anyway, that should become clear within the text, but I wanted to establish it firmly here as well.

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><p>Jacqueline might have succeeded in earning the friendship of the least-liked inhabitant of the mage's barracks, which at least guaranteed her some companionship, but she discovered quickly that this did little to endear her to the rest of the king's mages. The others in the barracks did not change their opinions of her just because Kim had.<p>

She wished she could say she was really surprised by her peers' attitudes, but she wasn't. In her own district, where people were used to her and she lived under the protection of a Shian relative, her distinctly Niwani features hadn't mattered much. In the barracks, however, it was a different story. So many of the other mages had been recruited from southern and eastern villages where few— if any— of her father's people had ever set foot; and with rumors flying of rebellion against the crown by Niwani tribesmen… well, she supposed she would have been more the fool if she'd been caught off guard.

"They don't trust me," she sighed after a rough training session, during which she had found herself paired up with a particularly aggressive wind mage.

"You mean those other elemental goons they've got you sparring with?" Kim asked, flicking over a new page of her book and not raising her eyes to meet Jacqueline's.

She shook her head, collapsing backwards onto her bunk. "Not just them. It's _everybody_."

"You're not really surprised, are you?"

"No, I suppose not. I just… thought maybe mages in the royal service would be better than that. These people are _educated_, you know?"

"People being shitheads for no good reason isn't limited to the ignorant masses. Education doesn't guarantee intelligence," Kim remarked dryly. "Besides, anti-Niwani sentiment has been on the rise for years, ever since your people killed Prince Asura."

"They're not '_my people_,'" Jacqueline corrected sharply. "I wasn't raised Niwan. My father, whoever he is, never even knew my mother was pregnant. I'm not some tribeswoman, I just look like one."

Kim grunted in acknowledgement, and added after a moment, "But as far as most people are concerned, you're not Shian, either."

"No, I guess not," she said quietly.

"I mean," Kim said, and her tone was strange, as though she were apologizing for bringing it up but simultaneously challenging Jacqueline to contradict her. "Quite aside from your looks, you _do_ wear your hair up like the Niwan women do."

"Yeah…"

She lapsed into reflective silence. Kim had a point, unfortunately; she'd never been quite one thing or the other. Although the Niwan people were, officially speaking, citizens of Shi, the proud northern tribes had never completely accepted the authority of the royal family. They were part of the kingdom, but still separate, still largely self-governed. There was an invisible border running right through Shi, dividing the Shian from the Niwani, and Jacqueline herself seemed constantly straddling the border. In her heart of hearts she felt Shian, but as Kim said, she couldn't change what she looked like. And more than that, she had a poorly-suppressed curiosity about her family on her father's side.

She often wondered how things might have changed if her father had stayed in the capitol with her mother and married her, or taken them back north to his tribe with them. How different her life might have been!

"For the record," she added at length, "The Niwani didn't kill Prince Asura. I mean, he was in Niwan territory when he disappeared, but they never found his body."

"So for all we know, the pressures of inheriting the throne got to him and he just… what, crept away in the dead of night to go live a quiet life in the woods?" Kim replied sarcastically. "And I guess his guards just viciously slaughtered themselves, did they?"

Jacqueline shrugged. "I'm not saying I know what really happened. I'm just saying there's no actual proof Niwan people had anything to do with it."

She heard the crackle of parchment as Kim turned another page. "Hm. That's true. It was suspicious, though, you've gotta admit that much."

"I guess." Another thought occurred to her. "Hey, Kim?"

"Mm?"

"How come you're okay with, y'know, me being half-Niwani? I mean, you're from south of here, and it seems like the people who trust me least are—"

But Kim was laughing before she could even finish her question. "Oh, honey, there's a big difference between being '_from the south_' and being from Majoria. It's a port city— you get all kinds there, Niwan included. I didn't grow up in some backwater village where you never see anybody but other Shians and end up marrying your cousin because there's just no other options in a town that small."

Jacqueline grinned. Since they'd officially become friends, she'd come to like Kim's caustic sense of humor. She had a way of making even mundane conversation funny.

"So you don't live in constant fear that I'll suddenly pull out a warhammer and bash your skull in like the uncultured murderer I obviously secretly am?" she said, intending to tease back. Two decades of painful earnestness, however, rather undermined the attempt. Or perhaps it was because Kana's comments during their sparring session that morning still rankled.

Her failure to keep a light and carefree tone didn't go unnoticed. "What?" Kim exclaimed, snapping her book shut. "Someone actually said that? Who was it? I'll make 'em regret they were ever born!"

And just like that, Jacqueline decided it didn't matter. She had Kim, what did she care about anybody else?

"You can't kill the entire barracks, Kimiearl," she said, a smile in her voice. "I think Captain Free might take issue with you murdering his entire regiment over a few insults."

"Free can go stuff it," Kim muttered, reluctantly reopening her book.

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><p><strong>AN 2-** Oh look, we're starting to get a whiff of a plot. I appreciate any feedback you have the time or inclination to leave me!


	4. Bubblegum

**A/N-** So... this is 100% totally unbeta'd. I am so sorry for the horrific grammar errors that are undoubtedly littered in here without my knowledge. This is what I get for procrastinating.

Also this has virtually nothing to do with the prompt for today. I just baaaarely managed to make it relate. What can I say, it was an impossible prompt for an AU set prior to the invention of bubblegum...

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><p>Kim took the heaping bowls of stew served up by a blank-faced lightning mage eagerly. "Gods bless you, Harvar," she said. "I can't cook for shit." One precarious trip back to their tent site later, she had placed a steaming spoonful in her mouth— and immediately spat it back out.<p>

"I changed my mind!" she exclaimed, grimacing. "I don't care how tired we are next time we break for the night, I'm not touching anything that comes out of that vat of Harvar's!"

Jacqueline, who had been eyeing the lumpy contents of her own bowl dubiously, looked up at Kim. "And what was it I said about freeloading on other peoples' cook-pots?" she said pointedly.

"Not to do it," Kim sighed. "But c'mon, Harvar owed me. Actually, scratch that, he still owes me— probably owes me _more_ now considering I'm never gonna be able to get that taste out of my mouth!"

The dark-haired woman shook her head, unable to conceal her smile. "You know, my father's people make a kind of chewing gum out of pine sap and honey. It's very sweet, and good for clearing a bad taste from your tongue."

Kim gave her a curious look. "I thought you said you didn't know anything about the Niwan culture?"

"No, I wasn't raised as one of them," Jacqueline said, "but my mother made sure I still learned about my ancestry. When the tribes would travel south, she would take me to visit their wintering grounds. At the time, I thought it was just to help me connect to that part of my heritage, but thinking back… well, I wonder if she wasn't searching for my father."

Kim wasn't so good with the emotional stuff, Jacqueline had found, so she wasn't surprised when her erstwhile bunk mate and current tent mate's response to this was to pat her awkwardly on the shoulder. It was endearing, actually. Kim wouldn't have made the effort for most people. Probably not for anyone besides Jacqueline herself, actually.

The thought made her grin. She and Kim had become so close these last few months, and she'd come to discover just how special the healer really was. She was prickly and could be self-absorbed, but she was also quick-thinking and staunchly loyal to the few people she cared about. Her ferocious defense of Jacqueline, combined with her reputation as the "bad girl" of the Shitoshi mages' barracks, had done more to win the fire mage acceptance among her peers than anything she could have done herself. It had gotten her foot in the door, at least.

Yes, Kim Diehl might seem hard-boiled on the outside, but she was as soft as sugar-floss candy on the inside, and Jacqueline loved it. She loved a lot of things about Kim, come to think of it…

"Hello? Earth to Jackie?"

Kim's hand was waving in front of her face, snapping Jacqueline back to the present.

"Huh?"

"You've been spaced out for five minutes, bird-brain. What's on your mind?"

Well, actually she'd been contemplating how pretty Kim's hair was and how much she liked the nightly routine of watching her brush the long amaranth locks at the end of the day, but she certainly wasn't going to tell Kim _that_!

"Uh… just thinking about the campaign," she lied quickly.

"Yeah? What about it?" Kim asked, her arms crossing almost reflexively the instant Jacqueline brought it up.

She sighed. Kim had made it very plain from the moment they were selected for this mission— more for the rarity of their respective affinities than any enormous talent on either part— that she did not like it at all. They had been assigned, along with a few other elite mages, to accompany Prince Gideon, heir apparent to the king after the death of Prince Asura, and a contingent of his soldiers on a march northward. Ostensibly their task was to impose order in two of the northernmost provinces in the kingdom. Rumors of civil unrest and rioting had reached Shitoshi, and the king was eager to restore peace to all his subjects.

Or at least… that was the idea. The non-magical soldiers who made up the prince's company had this funny habit of breaking into raiding parties and taking advantage of the villages along the northern road. The royal knight commanding the soldiers, a renowned but very young tactician by the name of Justin Law, did not seem very eager to control them.

"There aren't too many fires among the army's tents tonight," Jacqueline remarked sadly. "Do you think that little town we passed through…?"

Kim nodded. "It's disgusting. I hate armies. This is what they do… they plow through the land, eating up everything they can find and burning what they can't, all _in the name of the King_." The last was said with extreme bitterness, and Jacqueline understood why; it was only her oath of fealty to the crown that kept her from deserting. If she had to take a guess, she'd have said that Kim felt guilty by association… and if she was honest with herself, so did she.

"I hate it too, but I don't see what we can do about it." She held up her hand and allowed a small torch-light to appear in her palm. "I've gotten better using my magic, but even I can't stop two hundred men all by myself if they're really determined to get past me. I mean, maybe we could go to the prince, he might be able to do something…"

The healer snorted. "That kid Gideon? Please, he's even younger than you, and until Asura died he was a second son. Even if he _wasn't_ totally oblivious to half his company sneaking away every other night to go carouse and pillage and whatever the bloody hell else, there's no way he was taught to be a leader."

"But he's leading this mission—"

"Don't be naive, Jackie. Sir Law's leading this mission. The prince is a figurehead. He's only coming along because the king wants him to get his feet wet and start learning how not to completely fuck up a military campaign, seeing as he's the heir to the throne now."

Jacqueline sighed tiredly. "Look, let's not argue about it. I'm dead on my feet and since supper was a bust-" She glanced again at the congealing stew. "-I think we should just call it a night. We'll be up at the crack of dawn again tomorrow."

Kim nodded, and dumped the remainder of her bowl over the fire, nearly extinguishing it. Jacqueline raised an eyebrow at her, and though she was sure Kim couldn't actually see her in the sudden darkness, the healer seemed to guess her thoughts anyway.

"What?" she asked, faux innocence dripping in her tone. "It's not like you can't relight it."

Jacqueline did so with a casual flick of her wrist. "Lucky for you. It's getting cold at night, if you'd killed the coals and didn't have me around, you'd freeze for sure."

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><p><strong>AN part 2-** So then the question becomes... is Gideon really as useless as Kim seems to think? Or is Miss Diehl just an unreliable narrator?


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